I was working on an article that would have outlined the amazing
technology that has been developed over my lifetime when it suddenly
dawned on me that the creation of these many, many labor savings
devices has actually caused some negative unintended consequences.
There can be no doubt that these devices have caused our lives to be
much easier. However, what I hadn't really thought much about was how
this new technology has helped cause much of the unemployment that we
are experiencing. We are ending up with more and more technology to
help make our lives much easier, enjoyable, and productive, but at
the cost of many traditional jobs that will never be replaced. Almost
any job role depending on human labor that can be replaced with any
sort of automation simply will. These jobs are gone forever.

We all know that many millions of jobs have been sent offshore to
allow companies to reduce labor costs. I would be willing to bet $1
that many times more have been lost to technology. Part of these
losses are simply due to automation. As one example, imagine how many
workers were required to assemble an automobile even a few decades
ago vs. today. Recently I had the opportunity to tour the BMW plant
in Spartanburg where they manufacture every X5 SUV for the entire
world. I was amazed at the amount of automation and the relatively
few workers on the assembly lines. I would guess that today's auto
assembly requires perhaps one tenth the number of workers compared to
the "old" days. Now apply that to every other formerly labor
intensive manufacturing business. I remember when almost every
management level person had a secretary who provided administrative
assistance. Today the word "secretary" is almost completely
missing from our vocabulary. Technology has replaced this role almost
completely. Remember when you either looked up phone numbers in a
paper phone book...or if you were a bit lazy you dialed 411 for
operator assistance. Paper phone books are on the way out and
telephone operator jobs have been massively reduced and will
eventually disappear completely as robotic speech recognition
technology just keeps improving. When was the last time that you
called any large business and had a human answer the phone? Those
jobs are gone forever.

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Consider what the Internet has done to contribute to the shrinkage or
total elimination of jobs or even entire industries in the past few
decades. We often hear critics point out that the Post Office is a
great example of why government management of enterprises just won't
work. In reality the Internet more than any other factor has been the
real culprit that is literally forcing the Post Office out of
business and will eventually have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Look at how our buying habits have changed due to the Internet. Today
when you can shop from the comfort of home and compare prices and
product ratings, why would you make a trip to a bricks and mortar
business? When you do make the trip to one of the big box stores have
you noticed how few employees are around to help with purchases? They
cannot compete with the Internet based retailers if they have to
maintain the number of employees they once had. I just read in the
WSJ that Best Buy pulled out all the stops to compete with Amazon
over the recent Black Friday shopping period. They had some success
with total sales, but their profit margins were far from acceptable
or sustainable. As the technology and our personal experience
improves, Internet shopping will increasingly dominate our buying and
selling of goods and services. How many jobs will be lost can only be
speculated at...but the numbers will be huge.

This leads to the question about jobs for our future citizens.
Specifically where will they come from? We clearly will have fewer of
the types of the labor intensive jobs that we had in the past. It
seems impossible to consider otherwise. As we watch our elected
leaders struggle with effective job creation ideas...maybe the truth
will begin to dawn...they have simply been unwilling to honestly
acknowledge what they have known for a long, long time. Our world as
we knew it no longer exists. Solutions from past paradigms won't work
in our dramatically changed future. Add in the complexities of a true
global economy and you end up with some very difficult choices that
must be made by our leaders and our citizens. I shared this article
with one of my older and wiser friends over the phone, and then asked
him what he thought. He said quite simply; "I think the article
should be titled "we are in deep s___!" One thing that seems
certain to me is that we shouldn't be wasting our time and energy in
waging wars of blame between the 1% vs. the rest of us. Technology,
globalization, and unenlightened leadership are the key culprits that
have tossed our world and lives upside down. We can't and shouldn't
reverse the first two...but we must find the personal courage to
address the latter. We must replace the old guard in Washington as
soon as possible and find fresh new leadership.

Mike spent most of his working career in a variety of managerial roles in five different industries for two employers over a 38 year career. He now writes a political Op-Ed column for the Hendersonville, NC Times-News, and displays his favorites at (more...)